Global warming is a coral reef migration.

As the globe warms, many temperature-sensitive species have to adapt or expire. Many in the scientific community have been particularly concerned about coral reefs. A new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters by researchers in Japan suggests that the threat to coral reefs may not be that dire.

Rising temperatures can disrupt the symbiotic relationship between coral reefs and the algae that live on them, causing the reefs to suffer and even die. As temperatures rise, temperature-sensitive algae that sustain the coral are expelled or killed. Though corals can recover from such events, which are known as coral bleaching, they can also be seriously damaged or perish from them, depending on the temperature or duration of the event.

Such phenomena have been observed from the Caribbean to the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and have often been especially extreme following summers with unusually warm sea surface temperatures. For example, in 1998 when temperatures in the Indian Ocean spiked to levels not seen in half a century, bleaching led to the death of 50-90 percent of corals on many reefs. It’s estimated that 16 percent of the world’s corals died from that event. In the Caribbean in 2005 some 28 percent of observed coral was bleached.